Sectoral conditions

The economic fallout from the coronavirus pandemic affected the KION Group’s segments to varying degrees. The KION Group’s main regional sales markets in the Industrial Trucks & Services segment felt the impact throughout the year. The global market for industrial trucks varied significantly from region to region and generated year-on-year growth overall, primarily thanks to very strong growth in China. The Supply Chain Solutions segment benefited from the establishment and expansion of automated supply chain solutions for e-commerce and this more than compensated for the negative effects of the pandemic on individual customer segments.

Industrial Trucks & Services

Despite the coronavirus pandemic, order numbers in the global market for industrial trucks rose by 8.6 percent year on year to around 1.6 million trucks in 2020. This increase was mainly due to exceptionally strong growth in China (up by 37.0 percent) over the course of the year, having begun after China brought the pandemic under control early on. As a result, the APAC region (Asia-Pacific) as a whole recorded a rise of 23.5 percent. Excluding the figures for China, the number of new trucks ordered in the global market decreased by 4.3 percent. The decline was particularly pronounced in the EMEA region (western Europe, eastern Europe, Middle East, and Africa), where the number of trucks ordered went down by 5.2 percent. The Americas region (North, Central, and South America) registered a small decrease in orders of 0.1 percent.

Global orders for new electric forklift trucks decreased by 0.9 percent compared with 2019, whereas trucks fitted with an internal combustion (IC) engine saw a 9.6 percent increase in orders owing to the sharp rise in unit sales in China. Order intake for warehouse trucks was also boosted by China’s strong growth, rising by 11.2 percent year on year.

Supply Chain Solutions

The worldwide market for supply chain solutions was held back by the marked slowdown of the global economy and the resulting reluctance to invest during the reporting period. Despite these negative effects, the research institute Interact Analysis estimates that the percentage growth in the global volume of warehouse automation orders in 2020 was in the high single digits. The Americas region recorded the fastest increase in demand, fueled by the predominance of e-commerce in the US market. The APAC and EMEA regions saw only slightly slower increases in demand.

The coronavirus pandemic caused consumers to shift toward online shopping, resulting in companies having to reorganize their supply chains with omnichannel approaches. This led to increased demand for warehouse automation and for sorting and picking solutions, particularly in grocery logistics and in general merchandise. By contrast, demand in sectors such as apparel and non-durable manufacturing declined on the whole.

Procurement markets

Year-on-year price trends for the commodities used by the KION Group were mixed in 2020. The price of steel fell sharply at the start of the coronavirus pandemic but recovered over the course of the year. However, the average price for the year was lower than in 2019. Having slumped at the start of the year, the price of copper rose steeply from the second quarter onward and its average price for 2020 was therefore higher than in the previous year. By contrast, Brent crude settled at a price well below its 2019 level. Rubber increased significantly in price in the second half of the year and its average for 2020 was above the corresponding figure for 2019.